People today expect to have greater access to data than ever before. They want to retrieve their data on the road, in the home, or in the office, something they could only do before from a permanently connected personal computer hooked to an appropriately provisioned network. Some have also formed an obsession with having a continuous connection to communication tools, such as in the form of text-messaging or e-mail. For example, many people have adopted mobile e-mail solutions like the BlackBerry devices from Research in Motion or other similar devices.
Such systems, however, may have a number of limitations. For example, mobile devices do not have the same display capabilities as do desktop computers, so messaging that involves “rich” content such as complex graphics, videos, and Flash animations may not display on mobile devices. Generally, graphical content for mobile devices is produced using the Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML) format or the Wireless Markup Language (WML) rather than the HTML format used for desktop-directed content. However, a sender of a message may not know whether the receiver plans to view the content on a desktop or a mobile system.
Even apart from displaying the content, many desktop-based messaging systems have numerous icons and menus that are displayed around the content. The small displays on mobile devices may be too small to display such features, or the features may be shrunk too small to see, if they are included on mobile displays.
In addition, mobile messaging solutions are often proprietary, so that all users must use a device or devices provided by the operator of the messaging service (or the operator's close partner). Proprietary systems are beneficial because they allow the operator to know (and limit) the capabilities of the devices in the system, and to thereby better control the content in the system. However, such an approach limits a user's flexibility in selecting a device, and also limits the ability of a user to configure the device in a manner that best serves the user. Flexibility in choice of device presents complications, however, because the presentation capabilities of mobile devices can vary widely, so that content suitable for one device may not be suitable for another device. As a result, there is a need for systems and methods that can provide messaging content to mobile devices in a flexible manner that fits the needs of users, while limiting the burden on the user to select a particular device or continually update the manner in which content is presented.